Long-time Newcastle coach and player Richard Nicholls says he and his staff are "devastated, disappointed and incredibly saddened" after losing the lease at District Park Tennis Centre.
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Mr Nicholls' Topspin Tennis Newcastle has run coaching and competitions at District Park for 10 years, but the Newcastle and District Tennis Association committee voted this month to award the lease to a new operator.
The new business, now based in Sydney, will take over from Christmas eve.
Mr Nicholls has played at District Park for almost 40 years, won nine Newcastle Open men's singles titles and once played in qualifying for the Australian Open.
He said the committee's decision had left he and his staff disillusioned.
"Our junior and adult tennis programs were close to capacity," he said.
"Over the past 10 years our staff have worked tirelessly to create a positive culture and deliver quality tennis programs to the local community.
"We feel for our hard-working staff, our 600-plus juniors who attend weekly classes and hundreds of adults who play in our social comps."
He said he wished the new operator well and planned to continue tennis programs at other venues next year.
Interim association president Ian Tennant said the new operator "ticked many boxes" to make the centre "even better than it is now".
"Richard's been there for 10 years and done a good job, but we looked at the proposals that were put before us and decided to go with someone else," he said.
Mr Tennant said the new operator had the highest coaching accreditation in Australia and employed other experienced coaches.
"They have a coach who does elite-squad training, which was appealing. There's not elite-squad training done currently at District Park.
"There was a number of other things, many, many things that were positive about his proposal. It's purely a business decision. Nothing personal against Richard."
Mr Tennant did not want to divulge the name of the new operator, but he said he was a Novocastrian.
"He's coming back home, which is nice. For the past few years he's been running a successful business in Sydney. Some of his coaches are from here, too."
He said some in the tennis community might be disappointed with the decision, but "I know of some players who are going to come back and play there who haven't been playing there".
A former committee member said he was "flabbergasted" by the decision.
"I don't care if Rafael Nadal is coming in to run a facility. If the tenant has been paying the rent on time, you don't just boot them out in the middle of a pandemic," he said.
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